Pay the Piper

Pay the Piper keeps you productive by making you "pay" to visit distracting sites. The cost? One completed task from your task list.

Pay the Piper

Extension stats

Users: 44
Rating: 4.00
(7)
Version: 1.1.7.5 (Last updated: 2014-09-29)
Creation date: 2014-09-29
Risk impact: High risk impact
Risk likelihood:
Manifest version: 2
Permissions:
  • notifications
  • storage
  • tabs
  • webRequest
  • webRequestBlocking
  • webNavigation
  • <all_urls>
  • http://*/*
  • https://*/*
Size: 1.73M

Other platforms

Not available on Android
Not available on Firefox
Not available on Edge
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Extension summary

Do you have trouble remembering to look at your to do list? Ever go onto your computer to accomplish some small task, only to emerge hours later with the task still unfinished but a greater appreciation for cats than you ever dreamed possible? Do you ever wish you could just get a reminder to call the dentist BEFORE you started looking at pictures of your ex on Facebook?

If this sounds like you, then it's time to Pay the Piper!

Pay the Piper protects you from your own bad habits by keeping you away from sites you know are distracting and focusing you back on your task list. Like a web blocker, you decide what sites are distractions to you, and Pay the Piper prevents you from viewing them. Unlike those other blockers, Pay the Piper replaces the distraction with a task from your task list. Completing any of your tasks grants you a few minutes to browse the distracting site. Hey, you've earned it!

Pay the Piper was built to augment the power of the todo.txt system and its Android/iOS apps. If you are a todo.txt user and your files are stored on Dropbox, Pay the Piper can use that task list as its source. But don't worry if you don't store your tasks there -- you can also create your own list inside of Chrome. Thanks to the power of Google Chrome Sync, all of your logged in Chrome browsers will share the same task list.

"I got things done this weekend that I didn't think I would have!" Jessie Rymph, founder, Works Progress Seattle

User reviews

なぜかDropboxにログインできません。
by 礒之助, 2019-10-12

This has helped me a lot over the past several months, just to put a "temporary unlock" to the places I go on my break. The options panel runs really really slow, but it could be because of the size of my todo-txt list (1435 lines), and could be other extensions that are causing problems (I've noticed the slowness in other extensions that manage other lists), but the response time is like 5 seconds after clicking and typing. The other problem is that I can't get it to properly drop completed items into a "done" list, and I only get blank lines. Even changing the name to the default done.txt has not helped. A cosmetic issue is that very long descriptions of tasks get truncated in a funny way, and I wish the buttons were on the top, not the bottom, so I can quickly skip through each item that comes up that I'm choosing not to do now.
by Berm Lee, 2017-03-07

I love this! I am so much more productive with it. I also feel so much saner by limiting my time scrolling through social media crap. I now use this exclusively for my to-do list.
by Jessie Rymph, 2014-10-30
View all user reviews

Extension safety

Risk impact

Pay the Piper requires some sensitive permissions that could impact your browser and data security. Exercise caution before installing.

Risk likelihood

Pay the Piper may not be trust-worthy. Avoid installing if possible unless you really trust this publisher.

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